


Solus

by Ashstriferous



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 13:27:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19377640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashstriferous/pseuds/Ashstriferous
Summary: All good things must come to an end, especially for shadows like Shin Malphur. Inspired by the prompt of "Tempt" for ShinDrifter Week





	Solus

For as long as Shin Malphur can remember, there has only ever been one path. He isn’t so sure that he believes in things like Destiny, or Fate, or any of those cosmic forces. He simply knows that this road he walks, cold despite the ash he leaves in his wake, is the only one that’s ever been his. There is no other man, no other guardian, who could stare so deeply into the abyss as he and still maintain his hold on the Light.

Likewise, there had never been a single man who had ever been able to pull him from his course. Shaxx, for all his honor and code, had tried. Teben had always been a distraction, nothing more. Even the Ghost that hovered dutifully over his shoulder no matter what, the Ghost that his third father had entrusted to him, voiced its concerns to a deaf ear. 

For the world to have peace, Shin Malphur could have none. 

He’d told himself that for years. He tells himself that now, even as he curls himself around the Drifter. He’s not an easy man to wrap himself around -- his shoulders are too broad and his arms to thick. But Shin had allowed it to be the other way around for too long. He’d been taken in by hope ( _Hope_ , he corrects himself, ever appreciative of the irony in Drifter’s chosen name), and it had nearly blinded him. 

He’d nearly _let_ it blind him. 

Before he’d arrived on the Derelict, he’d told himself this would be the last time. A clean break, one that he might even make Drifter believe was his own choice. But then he’d smiled, a smile that was too many teeth and, at least in public, never seemed to reach his eyes.

Only this time it did. 

Now, Shin laid beside Drifter, cheek pressed against a shoulder blade, wishing he hadn’t tried to say goodbye. He still felt warm and pleasantly full, could still feel the sting of Drifter’s nails against his back as he’d came for the final time that night. He could still see the look in his eyes as Shin rode him through his orgasm, like a man seeing the sunlight after years in the darkness. 

Shin wanted nothing more than to see that look a thousand more times.

Instead, he sits up. The blanket Drifter had wrapped them in falls away from Shin’s torso, exposing him to the chill of the night air. The Derelict has always been cold, but now the chill feels unbearable. Dimly, he wonders if Drifter can feel it too, and quickly tucks the spare bit of blanket around the prone man.

At least their lovemaking had done one good thing for him. Drifter doesn’t so much as stir as Shin dresses himself again.

He tells himself not to turn back after he slides his cloak over his shoulders. Shin knows that if he does, the doubts will come pouring in. What he wanted doesn’t matter. What he does, he does for the world. Two broken hearts was nothing compared to that.

Yet once he reaches the door to Drifter’s makeshift hut, Shin turns back anyway. Tucked beneath a blanket, alone on a cot in a cold ship, Drifter seems small. Vulnerable. And yet, despite the desolation gathering itself around him, the man looked happy. At peace. 

Hopeful, Shin thinks with a grimace.

For a moment, caught between the cold of the Derelict and the warmth he’d shared with Drifter, Shin doubts himself. It isn’t the first time it’s happened. Hell, it’s the reason why it took so damn long for him to even _try_ leaving. In the face of loneliness, it’s easy to fantasize about the warmth that would be left behind. Even the Whispers, the treacherous things that they were, seemed to be drowned out by the hammering of his heart, begging him to (just this once), put himself first. 

He allows himself a painful moment to consider the idea. He ponders the idea of countless mornings waking up to the blue of Drifter’s eyes and the deep rumble of his laugh as Shin fruitlessly tries to complain about his snoring once again. Maybe they’d run away from this system, from the shadows it could never shake. They could build their own lives, their own light, their own hope.

Shin had earned it, hadn’t he? He’d lost so much -- surely he deserved some sort of comfort in his life. All the work he’d done had laid such a solid foundation. The others could do the rest, do so in his name. Surely Drifter could craft some sort of scheme, one where Dredgen Vale (and Zyre Orsa and every shadowy name Shin had taken for the sake of light), was tragically struck down in the midst of his righteous cause.

Shin shakes his head and pushes the thoughts from his head. He spends one last, quiet moment studying Drifter, determined not to forget this final memory of the man. Then, with a soft whisper to his Ghost, the Derelict vanishes, and Shin is left alone on his own ship.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [twitter](twitter.com/ashstriferous), where i scream about stupid men who pine over stupider men.


End file.
